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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

Attorney General Barr Rushes to Execute 3 More Federal Inmates Before Biden Becomes President

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On Friday, Attorney General William Barr directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to execute three more death row inmates before President-elect Joe Biden takes office January 20.

Biden has previously said that he supports legislation to end the federal death penalty.

“Since 1973, over 160 individuals in this country have been sentenced to death and were later exonerated,” Biden tweeted on July 25, 2019 when Trump announced his decision to resume federal executions. “Because we can’t ensure that we get these cases right every time, we must eliminate the death penalty.”

However, as Fox News pointed out, the three inmates Barr wants to execute were all convicted of murder:

– Alfred Bourgeois was convicted for abusing, torturing, and beating his two-year-old daughter to death in 2002.

– Cory Johnson murdered seven people associated with his drug-trafficking activities in 1992.

– Dustin John Higgs kidnapped and murdered three women in the 1990s.

All three men are scheduled to be executed in December 11 and January 14 and 15, respectively.

A 2019 Gallup poll found that 60% of Americans consider life in prison as the appropriate punishment for murder. Only 36% thought the death penalty was an appropriate punishment.

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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

Bodycam Footage Shows Ohio Cop Killing Unarmed Black Man for Sitting In His Own Car

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Andre Hill, police, shooting, bodycam

Twitter users are sharing police bodycam footage taken during the Tuesday police shooting of Andre Hill, an unarmed 47-year-old Black man in Columbus, Ohio who was shot dead just for sitting in a vehicle within his own garage.

The video shows that Officer Adam Coy killed Hill within seconds of encountering him. Hill emerges in an open garage with an illuminated cell phone screen in his left hand, his right hand out of view. After killing Hill, Coy (his gun still aimed) screams at Hill to put his hands up and not to move as Hill lays dying on his garage floor.

Police had been responding to a non-emergency disturbance call within the neighborhood at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Thomas Quinlan, Chief of the Columbus Division of Police in Ohio, has announced his intention to fire Coy and file two departmental charges alleging Coy’s critical misconduct. There is also an ongoing investigation into the actions of other officers present during Hill’s slaying.

“I have seen everything I need to see, to reach the conclusion that Officer Coy must be terminated immediately,” Quinlan said. “Some may call this a rush to judgment. It is not. This violation cost an innocent man his life.”

Quinlan said Coy’s actions “at a minimum, demonstrate incompetence, gross neglect of duty, misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance.”

This is actually the second deadly shooting of a Black man in Columbus, Ohio this month.

The first was Casey Christian Goodson Jr., a 23-year-old Black man who was shot and killed on his doorstep by an Ohio sheriff’s deputy on Friday, December 4. At the time, Goodson was carrying a sandwich and not a gun as legal authorities have previously claimed, Goodson’s family states.

Goodson’s shooting is currently under investigation by U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the FBI in Cincinnati and the Columbus police.

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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

Body Cam Catches Boston Cop Bragging About Running Over Black Lives Matter Protestors

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In a video that is quickly going viral, a sergeant with the Boston Police Department bragged to a fellow officer on body camera about “fucking hitting” Black Lives Matter protestors with his car.

“Dude, dude, dude, I fucking, I drove down Tremont. There was an unmarked state police cruiser they were all fucking gathered around,” the sergeant begins. “So then I had a fucker keep coming, fucking running. I’m fucking hitting people with the car. Did you hear me? I was like, ‘Get the fuck—’”

At this point in the video, his recording officer briefly taps the sergeant on the head, turn his body camera away and then informs the sergeant that the camera is on. Though the sergeant quickly replies, “I know,” he begin stammering as he tries to say that he did not in fact hit protestors with his car like he just said.

“What I’m saying is, though, … I didn’t hit anybody, like, just driving…. My windows were closed, the shit was coming in,” the sergeant says before quickly falling silent and shaking his head.

The recording officer then says, as if in apologetic explanation, “This thing just fucking went on automatically,” referring to the body cam.

The Daily Dot explains, “The footage was exclusively obtained and published on December18 by the Appeal. The footage is part of the hours of footage featuring Boston police’s response to the [racial justice protests that occurred during and after June 2020].”

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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

Here’s the Republican Senator Blocking Stimulus Checks for Millions of Americans

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Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Minnesota, COVID, coronavirus, stimulus checks

Right now an estimated 12.6 million Americans are out of work and many more are struggling as the worsening COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered numerous businesses and industries. The last time Congress provided $1,200 economic stimulus checks to individual Americans was in March. Nine months have passed since then.

But as President Donald Trump, Democratic Congress members and 11 Republican Senators have all signaled their readiness to provide a new round of $1,200 checks to 382 million Americans, one Republican senator has voted down the measure twice: Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

On Friday, Johnson voted twice to block a measure that would’ve issue the checks to every U.S. resident.

“I’m not heartless,” Johnson said, defending his votes. “I want to help people. I voted to help people. I voted for the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, but I also am concerned about our children’s future.”

Johnson said he’s concerned that the costs of issuing checks would inflate the national debt, nevermind that alleviating economic worries would help heal the increases in drug use, depression and domestic abuse that have increased during the nearly year-long economic downturn.

On December 10, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Independent Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of Vermont pushed colleagues to vote for a second round of stimulus checks. In separate speeches, both senators said the checks should mirror those issued early in the pandemic which gave $1,200 to adults and $500 for each child. The first checks were passed with bipartisan and presidential approval at a point when the pandemic was less severe than it is now.

As of Thursday, however, Politico reported that the latest $908 billion economic stimulus package being negotiated in Congress only allotted for $600 stimulus checks.

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